Ultrabroad supercontinuum generated from a highly nonlinear Ge–Sb–Se fiber

Abstract

We report the fabrication of a novel high nonlinear fiber made of Ge-Sb-Se chalcogenide glasses with high numerical aperture (∼1.0), where the core and the cladding glasses consist of Ge₁₅Sb₂₅Se₆₀ and Ge₁₅Sb₂₀Se₆₅ (mol. %), respectively. The nonlinear refractive index (n₂) of the core glass is 19×10^-18 m²/W at 1.55 μm, and its laser-induced damage threshold under irradiation of 3.0 μm fs laser is approximately 3674 GW/cm². By pumping a 20-cm-long fiber with a core diameter of 23 μm using 150 fs pulses at 6.0 μm, supercontinuum spanning from ∼1.8 to ∼14 μm was generated.

Mid-infrared supercontinuum generation using As2Se3 photonic crystal fiber and the impact of higher-order dispersion parameters on its supercontinuum bandwidth

“…In order to produce ultrabroadband SC sources with high brightness that can cover the spectral evolution up to the molecular fingerprint region, researchers have proposed the use of optical waveguides made with different host materials such as fluoride, tellurite and chalcogenide glasses [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. The MIR transparencies of fluoride and tellurite glasses are not more than 5 µm [14] and until to date the highest SC extension in the long wavelength edge by these two materials are 6.28 µm [15] and 4.87 µm [16], respectively. At the same time, chalcogenide (ChG) glasses have shown wider MIR transparency exceeding 20 µm, depending on the compositions of glass components.…”

“…A number of numerical and experimental ultrabroadband SC spectra in the MIR region using ChG waveguides and fibers have been demonstrated quite recently [4,10,11,12,13,14,31,32,33]. Yu et al [12] demonstrated a SC spectrum covering a wavelength range from 1.8 to 10 µm with a pulse duration of 330-fs pumped at 4 µm in a 11-cm long ChG step-index fiber using Ge 12 As 24 Se 64 as a core and Ge 12 As 24 S 64 for its outer cladding with an input peak power of 3 kW.…”

“…Petersen et al [11] reported a MIR SC spectra spanning from 1.4 µm to 13.3 µm with a 85-mm-long ChG step-index fiber made using As 40 Se 60 as the core and Ge 10 As 23.5 Se 66.6 glass for its outer cladding, pumped at 6.3 µm with pulses of 100-fs duartion and an input peak power of 2.29 MW. Ou et al [14] reported a MIR SC spec-tral evolution up to 14 µm with a 20-cm-long ChG stepindex fiber made using Ge 15 Sb 25 Se 60 glass as the core and Ge 12 Sb 20 Se 65 glass for its cladding, pumped with a 150fs pulse duration at 6 µm and a peak power of 750 kW. Similarly, Cheng et al [13] reported a MIR SC spectrum spanning the wavelength range 2-15.1 µm in a 3-cm-long ChG step-index fiber using As 2 Se 3 as the core and AsSe 2 as outer cladding when pumped with a 170-fs pulses in 9.8 µm with a peak power of 2.89 MW, while Zhao et al [4] demonstrated a MIR SC spectra extending up to 16 µm using a 14-cm-long step-index fiber made from Ge-Te-AgI glass when pumped at 7 µm with 150-fs duration pulses and a pulse repetition rate of 1 kHz with a peak power of 77 MW.…”

Mid-infrared supercontinuum generation from 2 to 14 μm in arsenic- and antimony-free chalcogenide glass fibers

“…Arsenic and antimony are known to increase glass formation region [11] as well as refractive and nonlinear indices [12,13]. Indeed, most of SC spectra reported in chalcogenide glass (ChG) fibers are obtained with sulfide, selenide or telluride based compositions containing arsenic and/or antimony such as As2S3 [14], As2Se3 [15,16], GeAsS,GeAsSe [17,18], GeAsSeTe [19,20], GeSbS(Ga), GeSbSe [17]. To the best of our knowledge, only one study reports SC obtained with a ChG fiber free of arsenic and antimony [2].…”

Design of W-Type Index Chalcogenide Fiber for Highly Coherent Mid-IR Supercontinuum Generation

“…This is because of the Antimony (Sb) assists the shifting of the multi-phonon edge to longer wavelengths. In addition, it has relatively large nNL and high laser damage threshold of about 3674 GW/cm 2 which is more than twice times larger compared to As2Se3 glass [14][15][16].…”